What's for dinner tonight?

"So where does one get healthy, easy dinner ideas?"

This question was posed by my friend and former college roommate, Elaine, on Facebook recently. It prompted a slew of helpful suggestions from friends, and I started reporting my dinner plans as examples for Elaine. Elaine, in turn, started following my lead and recreating a version of my menus a day later.

In my words, Elaine is mooching off of my sweat and tears in the kitchen.

In Elaine's words, "Elaine is brilliant."

Then Elaine started to get demanding whenever I was late with the menu, so rather than continue to bore my Facebook followers with unending lists of what we eat, I thought I'd join the masses and create a blog to keep track.

I realized that, not only is it helpful for poor, starving Elaine to have a running supply of dinner ideas, but it is also helpful to me to have an archive of what I have thrown together on nights that seem to scream for takeout.

So for starters, I'm going to report on last night's dinner, simply because tonight is really just leftovers from that.

So here you go, Elaine: Eat up!

Big Tomato Sweet-Sour Salad
The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper




Dressing:
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil or bacon fat (I used 1/4 cup oil)
1 medium red onion, thin sliced lengthwise into long strips
salt and fresh ground pepper
8 large garlic cloves, thin sliced
2 tight-packed tablespoons brown sugar

Tomatoes:
2 or 3 large, delicious, ripe tomatoes (1 1/2 to 2 pounds), cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
3 medium green tomatoes (about 1 pound), cored and cut into 1-inch chunks (You could easily use all red tomatoes, but the greens added some nice crunch)

Finish:
1/3 light-packed cup coarse-chopped fresh dill leaves (I could not find fresh dill anywhere, so I used about 1 tsp dried. Fresh would have been much nicer)

1. To make the dressing, first pour the vinegar into a small saucepan and boil it down to about 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
2. In a 10-inch skillet set over medium heat, warm the olive oil or bacon fat. Stir in the onion, sprinkling it with a little salt and a generous amount of pepper. Saute for a minute, or until the onion is softened but not browned. Stir in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. You want to soften the garlic but not brown it. Pull the skillet off the heat and blend in the brown sugar to melt it. (You can set the dressing aside at this point for several hours, or refrigerate it for up to a week.)
3. Put the tomatoes into a large serving bowl. When you are ready to serve, warm up the onion mixture if needed--it should be warm, not hot. Pull the pan off the heat, and stir in the boiled-down vinegar and any liquid from the tomatoes. Carefully (the dressing could be quite hot) taste for seasoning and sweet-tart balance. Pour it over the tomatoes, folding in the dill.
4. If you made the salad with olive oil dressing, serve it warm or at room temperature. If bacon fat was used in the dressing, it's best to eat it warm.
5. I broiled a salmon fillet and served it on top of the salad, spooning the dressing over all of it. The dressing was also quite tasty the next night served with grilled chicken breast basted with honey-barbecue sauce.